David G. Hargroder

(From Rabenhorst Funeral Home)

An intense lover of life to the end, David Gabriel Hargroder died unexpectedly on New Year’s Day while visiting friends in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He was 32 years old. 

 He is survived by his parents David E. Hargroder, MD, and Angelique Alexander Hargroder, his sister Cara Hargroder, his brother Lane Hargroder and Lane’s wife Tiffany and their two sons, Oake and Atlas, his grandmother Florina Roy Alexander, his grandfather Earl Hargroder, and numerous uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, cousins and friends who adored him. 

 David was born at Schumpert Hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana on April 9, 1985. He spent his early years there, before moving with his family to Joplin, Missouri, where he spent many formative years. He developed many close and diverse friendships in Joplin. 

 An avid lover of all things LSU, David later returned to Louisiana, where he earned his undergraduate degree in political science at LSU in Baton Rouge. He went on to attend Southern University Law School, where he excelled in trial advocacy and earned his law degree. 

 At the time of his death, David was a resident of Joplin and was preparing to take the Missouri Bar Exam and begin his career as an attorney. He would have been a tremendous courtroom advocate, for all that he did sprang authentically from his magnificent heart and soul. He lived his life with poetic imperfection, absolutely void of pretense. 

 As all who were close to him know, among David’s greatest virtues was his tenacious hunger for justice and fairness, and he was often tormented by the injustice he saw around him. He possessed an infectious charisma that could warm even the most cynical heart. His smile lit up any room he entered, and his laughter and wit were pure gold. People wanted to be with him, and to be like him. David always had time to help and assist those less fortunate than himself, and he was a tenacious defender of the vulnerable. He was the full personification of Patrick Buchanan’s great axiom that when a mob shows up at your friend’s front door, demanding that he be produced for slaughter, you don’t force your friend to sit down and write up a list of his mistakes, you start unloading bullets from the upstairs windows. You take no prisoners. You fight until you are dead. To David, the worst sin a man can commit is to betray his friends. And he never did. David sucked the marrow out of this life, and he was among the most fiercely loyal men who ever walked the earth. He always had a kind word for those who were struggling, often while disguising the deep torments of his own soul. He made a lasting impact on all who knew him. 

 We ache for him now, yet our hearts are left alone to echo the words of the great Langston Hughes, son of Joplin: “I loved my friend, he went away from me. There’s nothing more to say, the poem ends, soft as it began-I loved my friend.” Rest in peace David Gabriel, until your unmoored laughter guides us into the blessed isle of ever-after- a laughter that shall never again be hushed. 

 Visitation at St. George Catholic Church in Baton Rouge on January 4 from 9-11 AM, with mass to follow. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the National Right to Life. http://www.nrlc.org/donate/